Wednesday, 13 November 2013

A Change of Tack?

In 2009, while I was at the Law Society, we held a
Conference to mark ten years of the Scottish Parliament.

We secured, if I say it myself, a stellar line up of
speakers. Jack McConnell, Jim Wallace, David McLetchie, Jim Sillars and many
others.

And we were obviously wanted a Minister of the then
Government. Who, after a bit of coming and going, proved to be Mike Russell.

He came and went like most of the other contributors that
day. But, unlike the others, he did not come and go alone. For he arrived in a
Government car and with an entourage of SPADS and Civil Servants.

I make no criticism of that, for it reminded me, on the day,
of a similar experience when big Donald spoke as (still then) Secretary of
State for Scotland at the last big Scottish Labour Action event held in early
1998 on the topic of a Labour Agenda for the Scottish Parliament. Then, he
spoke, and then as he left the hall seemed to be followed by the entire first
two rows of the audience.

There is, it has to be conceded, a
certain.....grandeur...that goes with being a Minister of the Crown appearing on
official business. And a certain authority to your remarks that exceeds even
that of the most distinguished opposition politicians.

I have been surprised to date as to how little use of this phenomenon
the SNP has made use of in the Referendum Campaign.

For all they are an entire Government committed to securing
Scottish Independence you would have thought from their public utterances that
it was a matter only of real interest to Eck and Nicola (and not even all the
time to Eck). The other Ministers are apparently mainly interested in running
their Departments, even if that was framed by a requirement to run them as
quietly as possible for fear of frightening the horses. “Freedom” is to be placed
more in the hands who see Independence only as a precursor to the more general
revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. Those who would make their argument on
the street, or at least up Calton hills or Glasgow statues.

So the decision of Kenny McAskill to do an extended
interview on Scotland Tonight on Justice Policy represents an interesting
change of tactic.

Kenny is a manifestly competent minister. He might be a bit
authoritarian for my taste but he will, I say with confidence in advance, be
seen to be manifestly “on top of his brief”. Even on the issue on which we
would most fundamentally (currently) disagree, the abolition of the requirement
of corroboration for a criminal conviction, he has an argument to make and I am
sure he will make it well. No harm to STV but it would be better if he was up
against a (non-political) lawyer on this point.

The wider point is however this. At the end of the
programme, lots of viewers at home will be thinking “I might not agree with
that guys politics/nationalism but he certainly seemed to know what he was
talking about.” A reaction from the neutral seldom enjoyed by the various “collectives” around
the fringes of the Yes Scotland debacle.

And I’m sure a similar imprimatur would be bestowed on Mike
Russell on Education, Keith Brown on Transport or even Richard Lochhead who is
I am told similarly competent in a policy area of which I have little knowledge
and only slightly more interest.*

If I was advising the SNP I’d say this was the way to go. “These
people are competently running the Country at the moment. Give them more power.”
Crucially, that also sends a signal that
Scotland, post independence, would not be expected to spend all day Saturday
marching up and down outraged about something before going home to find
Strictly had been replaced on the SBC with a two hour monologue by Alan Bissett
about why we should all hate the English. Instead, the same, quietly competent
people would still be in charge.

I wonder if Kenny’s appearance tonight means that Yes
Scotland, under new leadership, has reached the same conclusion.

*Obviously
there are exceptions that prove the rule but the internal politics of the SNP
seem to prevent Alex Neil being thrown out of office as the useless clown that he
is. Nonetheless Governments in the end,
decide who gets on the telly and who doesn’t so presumably that could be
managed.